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Version: 10All Creatio products

Set up AI in the chat channel

AI in chats ships ready to run. With the out-of-the-box configuration, you can connect a channel, turn AI on, and have it answering customers in a few steps — no tuning required. Once it's working, you can shape it to your needs.

This article is for supervisors. To learn how agents work with AI-handled chats once AI is live, see Work with AI-handled chats.

note

The AI features are part of the Customer Communication Hub app and require the Contact Center app, since the AI works inside chats. Working with knowledge sources requires the Creatio.ai Knowledge Library.

Seed your knowledge base first — the built-in Customer Support Agent answers from the articles in it:

  1. Populate the knowledge base with articles if you don't have any yet.
  2. Tag every article you want the AI to use with the customer support tag. Tagged articles automatically appear in the dynamic Customer support articles folder, and the AI has access only to articles in that folder.

You need permission to the "Access to "Chat settings" section" (CanManageChats code) system operation. Learn more: System operation permissions.

Connect a channel and turn on AI​

The Add channel mini page in the Customer communication hub section connects the channel and turns AI on in one guided flow, using working defaults — the "Sofia" persona, a friendly tone, and the Customer Support Agent answering from your knowledge base.

  1. Open the Customer communication hub section and click Manage channels to open the Communication channels toggle panel.

  2. Click Add channel and pick your chat channel type (web chat, WhatsApp, SMS, Telegram, or Facebook Messenger).

  3. Keep or adjust the AI settings on the AI setup step (optional).

    Out of the box, AI is enabled with the "Sofia" persona, a friendly tone, and the Customer Support Agent connected.

  4. Click Save to add the channel.

  5. Send a test message into the channel (optional).

    The final step gives you the exact next action for your channel — for example, Test in preview mode for web chat, Send your first message for WhatsApp, Telegram, or Facebook, or the connected number with a copy icon for SMS.

As a result, the AI greets the customer, identifies itself as an AI, and answers from your knowledge base. It handles every new incoming chat on that channel automatically.

Enable or adjust AI on an existing channel​

  1. Open the channel's settings page and click the AI Automation tab.

  2. Select the Use AI in the channel checkbox to turn on AI automation.

  3. Select the personality.

  4. Set the audience rollout percentage — the share of incoming chats the AI handles, with customers assigned randomly. Out of the box, it's 100%. Lower it to introduce AI gradually.

  5. Select the Allow handoff checkbox in the Handoff rule expansion panel if the AI should escalate chats to a human agent when a customer asks for one (optional).

    On handoff, the chat transfers to the queue configured on the channel, appears in the chat panel to be accepted, and moves to "Waiting for response." Make sure the channel has a real queue behind it.

  6. Save your changes.

Change the AI assistant personality​

The personality is how the AI introduces itself and phrases replies — name, role, tone of voice, and greeting. In its first message of every conversation, the AI greets the customer with its name and role and makes clear it's an AI. Out of the box: "Sofia," AI assistant, friendly tone.

  • To change the tone and name, go to the AI Automation tab and edit the existing AI assistant personality, or use the AI personality for chats lookup.
  • To add a new personality or tone, create a record in the AI personality for chats lookup (name and role required), or in the AI tone of voice for chats lookup.
  • To change the greeting, create a lookup based on the "AI Prompt Template" object, find the "Chat assistant" record, find the section that starts with ### Conversation Opening Rule in its Template field, and adapt it.

Change the displayed name and avatar in chat history​

The name and avatar shown next to AI messages in the Chats section come from the contact bound to the "AiAgentUser" technical user. Out of the box, it is a contact named "AI Assistant" with a default avatar. To change what human agents see, edit that contact's name and photo.

The name the AI introduces itself with in its greeting (for example, "Sofia") is not this contact — it comes from the AI personality for chats lookup. This contact's name and avatar are instead what human agents see next to the AI's messages in the Chats section.

Change the AI agents​

Each channel ships with the Customer Support Agent connected, which answers from your tagged knowledge base. To use your own agent:

  1. Create the agent.
  2. Click Change agents on the channel's AI Automation tab.
  3. Select the required agent from the picker.

The connected agents and their knowledge sources are shared across all channels — even though you open Change agents from a single channel's AI Automation tab, the change applies to every chat channel.

If your agent needs to read or modify a Creatio object, also grant the AI technical user access to that object.

Tune the guardrails​

Guardrails apply to anonymous external chats and protect cost and behavior. All are system settings:

  • Response size cap — "AI anonymous chat max output tokens" (AiAnonymousChatMaxOutputTokens code). Out of the box, 400 output tokens.
  • Max AI turns per conversation — "AI anonymous chat max turns" (AiAnonymousChatMaxTurns code). Out of the box, 50.
  • Shared monthly AI budget — "AI monthly budget actions" (AiMonthlyBudgetActions code). Out of the box, 20,000 actions, shared across chat and email; resets at the start of each month (UTC).
  • Inactivity timeout — "AI chat inactivity timeout minutes" (AiChatInactivityTimeoutMinutes code). Out of the box, 15 minutes; bot-handled chats auto-close after this period of customer inactivity.

When the turn or budget limit is reached, the AI hands the conversation to a human agent — or, if handoff is disabled, replies with a message that it can't continue right now.

Troubleshoot​

  • AI not answering at all — check that the knowledge base has articles with the customer support tag, the Customer Communication Hub app is installed, and AI automation is saved on the channel. Also confirm the audience rollout isn't so low that the chat fell outside it.
  • AI answers but says it doesn't know — the knowledge base lacks relevant tagged content, or the knowledge source isn't bound to the active agent.
  • Handoff request ignored — handoff is disabled on the channel, or the channel has no queue configured.
  • To debug, on any chat where the AI participated, use the "Debug info" action to open the AI debug window. This requires the CanDebugSkills permission and is hidden when the chat was excluded by the audience-rollout split.

Good to know​

Supported channels: web chat, WhatsApp, SMS, Telegram, and Facebook Messenger.

Responses are converted from Markdown to plain text on channels that don't render Markdown. Only users with permission to the "Access to "Chat settings" section" (CanManageChats code) system operation can enable or disable AI per channel.

The system prompt is extended for external channels with the persona description, tone of voice, greeting rules, channel-specific behavior, and plain-text formatting. If you've already customized the system prompt, these additions aren't applied to it — persona, tone, and greeting changes you make in the UI don't take effect on a customized prompt.

See also​

Inbound customer communications

Work with AI-handled chats

Set up AI in the email channel